CREATIVITY / LOCATIONS
TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING THIS STUNNING, ISOLATED
LANDSCAPE IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA By Chuck Graham
NAMIBIA, LOCATED IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA along the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the
least populated countries in the world, second only to Mongolia. Its diversified, arid,
and stark landscapes of desert, sand dunes, rugged coastline, mountains, and salt pans
provide a home for some of the last nomadic tribes in Africa, and offer a unique blend of
desert flora and fauna. For photographers, Namibia is the ideal destination in Africa to
travel overland on a self-drive excursion to find the many photographic possibilities this
desert country has to offer.
Namibia is twice the size of California,
but with only two million people. Nearly
half of Namibia is now under conservation
management, the most in the world. Its
50,000-square-kilometer super park,
Namib-Naukluft National Park, stretching
for 1,000 miles from Angola to South
Africa, is the third largest national park
in Africa. This is one of Namibia’s most
versatile conservation areas.
Further south, Namibia’s newly
proclaimed Sperrgebiet National Park at
26,000 kilometers was inaugurated by
the Namibian government in 2008. The
park protects the ecology of the globally
important Succulent Karoo. Home to
2,439 endemic plants, conservationists
around the world have classified this area
as one of the planet’s top 34 biodiversity
hotspots.
Regardless of where your travels
take you across Namibia, you’ll never be
disappointed with the broad diversity of
photographic opportunities in this land of
endless openness.
The opportunist black-backed jackal is always at
the ready when food is nearby.
Photos © Chuck Graham
CAPTURING NAMIBIA
A visit to the Namib-Naukluft National Park isn’t
complete unless you float over the sand dunes.
20 | AUGUST | 2016
SHUP-160800-LOCATE.indd 20
5/24/16 10:07 AM
CREATIVITY / LOCATIONS
Dead Vlei has a ghostly presence to it with its dead camel thorn trees.
NAMIB-NAUKLUFT NATIONAL PARK
The great sand dunes of Namibia are
arguably its most stunning natural
wonder. The oldest desert in the world
also boasts the highest sand dunes in the
world. The tallest dunes are 1,000-feet
tall, found in Sossusvlei’s monumentally
mountainous dunes, and are sought by
photographers from around the world.
With their warm hues ranging from pale
apricot to brick orange and deep red,
the dunes are an impressively colorful
desertscape in Namibia’s harsh, arid
environment.
Also in this region is Dead Vlei, which
means “Dead Valley.” Surrounded by sheer
walls of sand, the only shade this mudcracked pan offers is the ghostly camel
thorn trees that have been standing dead
for 500 years in the valley.
As magnificent as the dunes are,
nothing accentuates their mass better
than the amazing wildlife that has adapted
to the desert habitat. Antelope such as the
nimble springbok and majestic gemsbok
are commonly seen browsing at the base
of the dunes. The gemsbok is especially
impressive because it never has to drink
water. Its digestive tract is able to extract
enough moisture from the vegetation it
eats.
A trip in the Namib-Naukluft National
Park isn’t complete without an early
morning hot-air balloon ride over the
mystical dunes. Floating 1,500 feet above
the desert floor, this lofty perch offers a
completely different perspective for the
travel photographer and the vastness
of the desert. Besides long shadows
retreating across the deep troughs of
the pink and orange dunes, there’s one
other natural wonder that is difficult to
ignore on the desert floor. Over the years,
numerous theories ranging from the
mundane to supernatural have swirled
around the “fairy circles” found on the
desert floor. However, it’s now assumed
the sand termite is the creator of the many
circles ringing the desert’s sweeping plain.
SKELETON COAST
A lonely, desolate, and barren stretch of
coast, the Skeleton Coast name originally
derived from the graveyard of whale and
seal bones that once littered the shoreline
during the whaling era in the 1800s. Now
that those marine mammals are protected,
today most of the Skeleton Coast is
a flotsam of wave-battered hulls and
splintered masts of shipwrecks that have
run aground in dense fog and stormy seas
on hidden reefs and dense sandbars and
been snagged by offshore rocks. More than
a thousand such vessels of various sizes are
strewn along the coast, notably the Eduard
Bohlen, Otavi, Dunedin Star, and Tong Taw.
The Skeleton Coast is also an excellent
habitat for thousands of Cape fur seals
that haul out along the entire stretch of
rugged coastline. The best, most accessible
place to photograph these raucous fur
seals is at Cape Cross, where a boardwalk
overlooking the massive rookery of
100,000 fur seals is the perfect platform
to watch and photograph the everpresent drama that never wanes. Don’t be
surprised if the boardwalk is occupied,
too! Cape Cross is home to the world’s
largest colony of breeding Cape fur seals.
There’s lots of squabbling within the
rookeries; hungry pups nursing, fur seals
bodysurfing the pounding shorebreak,
and occasionally brown hyenas and blackbacked jackals hunting unsuspecting pups
on the periphery of the rookery.
DAMARALAND
Located in the north-central region of
Namibia, Damaraland is loaded with
photographic possibilities. Unique wildlife
abounds. Elaborate Bushmen rock art and
petroglyphs, thousands of years old, reveal
stories of the hunt and fertility that are
painted and engraved in hidden canyons
and clusters of red rock piled throughout
Damaraland.
22 | AUGUST | 2016
SHUP-160800-LOCATE.indd 22
5/24/16 10:07 AM
CREATIVITY / LOCATIONS
clothing, but the women are famous for
covering themselves with otjize, a mixture
of butterfat and red ochre. It acts as a
lotion and a sunscreen to protect their
ebony skin against the sun. This unique
blend gives their skin a beautiful reddish
tint. This symbolizes the Himba’s idea
of earth’s rich red color and the blood
that symbolizes life. It also serves as a
convenient bug repellent.
Grazing the high plateaus of Damaraland, two Hartmann’s mountain zebras soak in the last of the
sunset.
Himba women performing a traditional dance.
Leopards blend in well in the Southern African
desert.
The Etendeka Plateau in the foothills of
the Grootberg massif is set among ancient
lava flows of northern Damaraland. The
craggy basalt has been slowly eroded over
millennia, leaving scattered boulders lying
upon dramatic flat-topped mountains.
Atop those mountains are sweeping
grasslands where the rare Hartmann’s
mountain zebra still thrives. There are
also herds of gemsbok, southern ground
squirrels, flocks of colorful Lilian’s
lovebirds, and pairs of kori bustards.
Sunset is an optimum time to photograph
on the plateau.
The spring-fed reddish brown rock
of Twyfelfontein has been inhabited for
6,000 years, first by hunter-gatherers and
later by Khoikhoi herders. Both ethnic
groups used it as a place of worship and a
site to conduct shamanist rituals. During
their rituals at least 2,500 rock carvings
have been created, as well as a few rock
paintings. Displaying one of the largest
concentrations of rock petroglyphs in
Africa, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein
as Namibia’s first World Heritage Site in
2007. The best time to photograph here is
in the morning and late afternoon.
Damaraland is the southernmost
territory of the semi-nomadic pastoral
Himba people. The Himba wear little
ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK
Deemed a national park in March 1907,
Etosha is Africa’s oldest national park.
Situated in northern Namibia, the massive
75-mile-long Etosha Pan is a great place
for photographers to sit and wait for
processions of wildlife to travel across the
pan to several watering holes located along
its periphery.
Endless drama unfolds around these
watering holes where zebras, wildebeest,
springbok, steenbok, and ostriches
congregate while predators such as
lions lie in wait. There are a couple of
watering holes situated below the bluffs
and overlooking the salt pan, convenient
stages for photographers to anticipate the
action before it transpires. Bring a pair
of binoculars to scan the tall grasses for
predators. You’ll also want a beanbag to
steady a long lens. As afternoon winds
pick up velocity, watch out for dust devils
swirling across the Etosha Pan.
There are more watering holes situated
in the maze of the scrubby woodland
habitat adjacent to the extensive pan. A
map can be attained at the visitor’s center
detailing each watering hole. Patience is
a key element photographing in Etosha,
while allowing the wildlife to come to
you. Expect guinea fowl, scaly-feathered
finches, warthogs, zebras, giraffes, greater
kudu, elephants, and predators like lions,
hyenas, and possibly cheetahs lying low in
the shade of the acacia woodland habitat.
Eventually everything has to come for a
drink.
Drive slowly on all the roads, not only
for your own safety, but for the safety of
the wildlife. You might miss something as
well. The main road leading from the front
gate to the visitor’s center can produce
black-backed jackals, bat-eared foxes, and
dik-dik, so always keep your camera at the
ready. n
To find out more about Namibia, go to
namibiatourism.com.na. Rhino Africa,
rhinoafrica.com, handled all my land
arrangements for a three-week overland trip
across Namibia. There wasn’t anything they
couldn’t handle.
24 | AUGUST | 2016
SHUP-160800-LOCATE.indd 24
5/24/16 10:07 AM